


Why Midorikawa Ended Up Driving Fudou to Nagano

by vanerz



Category: Inazuma Eleven, Inazuma Eleven GO
Genre: #Ina11SS2018, Christmas, Don’t copy to another site, Gen, mentions of Kariya Hiroto (Tatsuya) and Kidou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-14 18:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17513906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanerz/pseuds/vanerz
Summary: “Let me guess,” Fudou said, unimpressed. “You need my help to buy the perfect Christmas present for Mr. Fancypants CEO Kira Hiroto.”“What?” Midorikawa said. Though, with his tone so scandalised, it sounded more like a bark. “No! I bought his gift a month ago. I need your help to buy Kariya’s gift.”“Kariya?” Fudou did a quick flick through in his head of all the people he and Midorikawa knew, then all the people he knew, and then, when nothing came up, all the people he knew that Midorikawa knew. You know, like those orphanage alien buddies of his. Still nothing. “Who the hell is Kariya?”“He’s, uh. He’s this kid Hiroto and I may or may not have taken in.”Fudou choked. One hand went to cover his mouth as he sputtered, but while his airways were having a breakdown his mind continued whirring away. He expelled a few chesty coughs, thumping his chest with his other hand to get his system to calm down, and when he finally did he brought his hand forward to point at Midorikawa with one, accusing finger. (It was the gross coughy one. Midorikawa gave him a disgusted look.)“You!” Fudou exclaimed. “You’ve gone and got yourself a son!”





	Why Midorikawa Ended Up Driving Fudou to Nagano

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThatGreenBean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatGreenBean/gifts).



> This was a Secret Santa gift for Acel! (#Ina11SS2018) It is extremely late... my apologies again...

Out of everyone in the former Inazuma Japan team, the one person Fudou would not have expected to still be talking to ten years down the line was his junior, Midorikawa Ryuuji. And yet, somehow, during one reunion or another, they had hit it off. Late-night drinking sessions had led to exchanging numbers and surprisingly enjoyable LINE chats morphed into regular dinners whenever Fudou was back in Japan. Today was one such occasion. Only…  
  
“Let me guess,” Fudou said, unimpressed. “You need my help to buy the perfect Christmas present for Mr. Fancypants CEO Kira Hiroto.”  
  
“What?” Midorikawa said. Though, with his tone so scandalised, it sounded more like a bark. “ _No!_  I bought his gift a month ago. I need your help to buy Kariya’s gift.”  
  
“Kariya?” Fudou did a quick flick through in his head of all the people he and Midorikawa knew, then all the people he knew, and then, when nothing came up, all the people he knew that Midorikawa knew. You know, like those orphanage alien buddies of his. Still nothing. “Who the hell is Kariya?”  
  
“He’s, uh. He’s this kid Hiroto and I may or may not have taken in.”  
  
Fudou choked. One hand went to cover his mouth as he sputtered, but while his airways were having a breakdown his mind continued whirring away. He expelled a few chesty coughs, thumping his chest with his other hand to get his system to calm down, and when he finally did he brought his hand forward to point at Midorikawa with one, accusing finger. (It was the gross coughy one. Midorikawa gave him a disgusted look.)  
  
“You!” Fudou exclaimed. “You’ve gone and got yourself a son!”

\---

Fudou took a good few minutes to recover from his hyena cackling fit. Actually, it wasn’t just a few minutes. And they weren’t good either. Out of all the choices Midorikawa had made, this was rapidly climbing up his list of top regrets.  
  
Eventually, Fudou stopped.  
  
“Midorikawa,” he said, tone bland, expression now sober, “today is Christmas Day.”  
  
“Yes,” Midorikawa said. Finally, they were getting somewhere. “That’s why I’m coming to you for help. I don’t have much time!”  
  
Fudou frowned. “Well, do you know what you want to get him then?”  
  
“Well… Kariya has been getting really into this kid’s show lately. You know, the one hosted by Tominaga Jun?”  
  
“I’ve been overseas for the past few years, so no, I don’t,” Fudou said. “Also, I’m an adult. But go on.”  
  
“Hey, just because it’s a kid’s show doesn’t mean only kids watch it. Anyway, one of the limited-edition robot toys is being released. Today. Tonight actually, in Shibuya. At midnight. I was thinking I’d nab it and then go home…”  
  
Midorikawa trailed off. Fudou had an odd expression on his face, like his ears had suddenly become stuffed with tofu and he didn’t understand what Midorikawa was telling him. For goodness’s sake! He’d already said he didn’t have time for this!  
  
“Won’t you get home too late?” Fudou said. “That’s past the last train.”  
  
“Yeah, but it’s the perfect gift,” Midorikawa argued. “It’s going to be worth it. He’ll be so impressed, you’ll see…”  
  
“Hmm.” Fudou didn’t look as impressed as Midorikawa thought he would be. “Aren’t you an. Hmm. Never mind. But I really didn’t expect to have to tell you, of all people…”  
  
Midorikawa narrowed his eyes. “What are you trying to say?”  
  
Fudou breathed out, a big, long breath. He looked away from Midorikawa, and one arm reached up to ruffle his lion’s mane. He was clearly having trouble deciding how to say what he wanted to say. Midorikawa hoped the brain massage would help.  
  
Finally, Fudou looked back at him. He looked Midorikawa’s widening grin and hopeful gaze in the eye and said, “I think you should go home.”  
  
“What?” Midorikawa wasn’t sure he had heard him properly.  
  
“I said,” Fudou said, “I think you should go home.”  
  
“What?” Midorikawa didn’t bother to hide his shock now. “But I haven’t got the robot yet! I haven’t got  _anything_!”  
  
“Question,” Fudou said in a decidedly unquestioning tone, a weird smirk playing on his lips. “You were all raised by the Kira CEO right? The late Kira Seijirou?”  
  
It was surprising that Fudou knew his name, but on second thoughts it actually wasn’t. Kira Seijirou had been a pretty prominent public figure and Fudou had had contact with his organisation. He would have done his research. But the picture he would have got would have been totally different to who Midorikawa knew Kira Seijirou truly was.  
  
“Yeah, what about it? “  
  
“He spend every Christmas with you or something?”  
  
“Of course. Always. He got us all presents. But… I never got what I really wanted. Nothing I actually liked. That’s why I want to…”  
  
Fudou cut him off. “God, you can be really dense sometimes, you know that?” And he must have seen the flash of indignation in Midorikawa’s eyes, the electric impulse it was about to send to his mouth to object, because he insisted, “Just listen to me.”  
  
But he didn’t immediately speak. He took a while to gather his thoughts, and only curiosity kept Midorikawa’s mouth shut.

\---

“So,” Fudou said. He had thought for ages about how best to get his meaning across and had come up with nothing. “So, my dad’s alive.”  
  
“Yes, great. Thanks for reminding me that my birth parents are no longer on this earth,” Midorikawa replied. He didn’t look impressed, which was fair, but also, Fudou didn’t care.  
  
“My dad’s alive. But he might as well not be.” Fudou put a bit more venom into his words than he intended to. The annoyance in Midorikawa’s eyes dissolved pretty quickly after that.  
  
“One time I heard he wanted to get me a toy,” Fudou continued, not in the mood to accommodate Midorikawa’s comfort levels now. “Lost money in the pachinko and didn’t come back until New Year’s Eve. Another time he was drinking and they found him passed out on a park bench the morning of the 26th. I’d stayed up the whole night waiting for him. And there was the time he was working overtime. At least that time he was doing something honest.” Fudou could hear the bitterness in the voice coming out of his mouth, but his mind was detached. It was all just facts to him.   
  
“After a while, I just stopped bothering. And now I don’t think much of that man anymore. So.”  
  
He looked up at Midorikawa, who looked mostly stunned. Yeah, well, it was what it was.  
  
“Your kid’s a new addition to your home, right? It’s his first Christmas at yours?” Fudou tried to make his voice more sympathetic this time. This was about the kid, after all. He probably shouldn’t pile any more of his own issues onto Midorikawa than he already had. In fact, he’d inject some humour into it. “Don’t tell me you’ve had a son for years and I never knew.”  
  
“Um, yeah,” Midorikawa said. “That’s why I want to make it special.”  
  
Fudou smiled. “Pick a gift set up at the station if you must,” he said. “Then go home.”  
  
Midorikawa did.

\---

Nearly four months later, Midorikawa was just leaving the office when he saw a familiar lion’s mane running towards him. He seemed totally oblivious, or apathetic, to the glass door between them.  
  
“So,” Midorikawa said, pulling the door open just as Fudou would have run into it. “Let me guess. You want my help.”  
  
Fudou straightened up and gave him a roguish grin, one that he probably used on all the salespeople when asking for a discount. It probably would have worked on Midorikawa, too, if his heart didn’t already belong to one Kiyama Hiroto.  
  
“After I saved your ass on Christmas? You bet! How was that, anyway?”  
  
“It was good,” Midorikawa allowed. “I ended up just buying a Kariya a new ball from a sports shop on the way home. Kariya wasn’t impressed, but there’s always next year. Hiroto brought back KFC, we sang Christmas songs, and watched a Christmas movie. Kariya got to stay up later than usual. It seemed like he had fun.”  
  
Fudou’s eyes softened. Midorikawa hoped that was a good sign. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s the best type of holiday.”  
  
Midorikawa smiled faintly. “Yeah. Thank you for that. I really owe you one.”   
  
“You do, don’t you.” Fudou grinned. “Well, if you feel like paying me back…”  
  
Fudou wanted a ride to Saku, a town in Nagano. It was almost 200 kilometres away and the trip would take them through three provinces. His only desire? To buy a basket of freshly picked Shinshu Gold apples. They were a Nagano specialty and Kidou’s favourite. His birthday was tomorrow.  
  
So off they went.


End file.
